Madeleine Dupont

If there was one thing that I learned in the subjects of geography and human relationships in 4^th standard, it was the fact that long distance relationships never work out; especially when you never had a relationship in the first place.

~~~*~~~

It all started when I was in fourth standard, way back in 1994, before the times of the ubiquitous Internet and free web email.

Clara Miss (Mrs Clara Arockiaraj), our class and science teacher, weaved through the desks and placed a letter in front of everyone. I noticed there was a photograph stapled to each letter. She approached our desk, gave one letter to me, one to Azeem, my over-sized, cunning and bullying neighbour, smiled at him and moved on to the other desks.

I looked at my letter and the photograph that was stapled to it. There was a girl in it with a big fluffy dog, standing in the front-yard of a house. There was snow all over the place and the dog and the girl were standing on a thick sheet of snow. The girl was very pretty.

“Whoa!” said Azeem, looking at the photograph in my hands. That was more or less my expression too. It took some time for him to close his mouth, “Give me that, you pig!” he snatched at my letter.

I grabbed to it with my dear life. “No! You have yours!”

“Give me that! You keep mine,” he said, tugging at my shirt. I hadn't seen his photograph. He had folded and thrown it on my desk by now.

“No way!” I said, sensing the sinisterness in the deal, “I'll tell Clara Miss.”

“Give me that, or I'll..” He punched me mid-way through the sentence.

“Stop it or I'll tell Clara Miss.”

He punched me again saying, “GIVE. ME. THAT. You pig.”

“Okay, show me yours first,” I said, buying time. Clara Miss was still busy distributing letters and photographs in the last rows.

“Here,” he said and finally showed it to me.

My mother had always told me not to make fun of how people looked and in those days, I used to listen to her. But on that occasion it was irresistible. The boy on his photograph looked like a pink boulder, just like Azeem.

“Hehehe. Good for you,” I said, “I don't want that! I want a girl. So, I won't give you mine.”

“GIVE. THAT. TO. ME,” he said again with clenched teeth and twisted my free arm. He kept pulling at the other and finally managed to muscle the letter out of me. Only then did Clara Miss have the time to take control of the class.

“Quiet now, boys!” she said standing at the center of the class, “Have all of you got your letters?”

“Yes miss!” [chorus]

I wanted to say “No!” and complain about my letter, but it was useless. Azeem would only bully me later and get the letter anyway. In the meantime, Azeem had opened my letter and was already beaming with pride. I looked at the picture of the boy I had in my hands and grew sad at the loss of the girl.

“Alright, all of you,” continued Clara Miss, “Read your letters now. No exchanging. You can take it home and write a reply to that letter and submit it tomorrow. You can also bring a photo of you. Write your name, class and section clearly on the letter. Do not write your address. The replies will come to the school. If you write your address, I will not send your letter. Understood?”

“Yes miss!” [chorus]

My school was (and still is) a part of a Catholic congregation called the Congregation of Holy Cross (Congregation de Sainte-Croix). There are a few schools in India and possibly in other places of the world as well, as part of the congregation. Once in a while, we get visitors from other such schools. I guess, at that time, we had visitors from a constituent school of the congregation in Montreal and they had thought of the brilliant idea to start a pen-friends club. They had instructed the students of a class to write letters to pen-friends and had brought them along.

And mine was at the hands of a bully. I knew I could never fight Azeem. I sighed and thought about plans to get my rightful letter back.

~~~*~~~

One of the good things about the mafia is that they never forget the good deeds you did for their boss. Having the class mafia's boss – Rajkumar, as my bus-stop mate and the constant seat-holding in the school bus and the occasional homework-writing for him – did help in getting my photo and letter back. After the recess, Azeem came back with soiled uniforms and bruised elbows to return them. He snatched his own letter and photo back and left.

~~~*~~~

I went home that day and told my mother I had to write a letter about my hometown Salem (I'm not sure if Clara Miss asked us to do this or I came up with the ingenious idea) to a pen-friend in Canada. My mother was skeptic about the whole affair seeing the cost of international postage involved (money was a little hard to come by then and it was really hard to get funds sanctioned from the Finance ministry), but she soon became supportive after she learnt that it was borne by the school. Noticing my more-than-average excitement, she even supervised my letter writing. We were initially lost on how and where to start. Then I decided to follow the style of the letter I received (I guess the habit stuck!) -

Dear Pen-friend,

My name is Madeleine Dupont. I am 8 years old. I live in Montreal with my parents, my little sister Helene and my dog Chester. I like ice-skating and painting animals. I also like playing with Chester. My father is a policeman and my mother works for our church. I can speak French and English.

Where do you live? Does your city have a zoo? Montreal has a very big zoo. I like visiting it often. It has a parrot called Helene which my sister likes very much. There is also a big statue of a dinosaur I like. But there are no real dinosaurs in the zoo. Does your zoo have a dinosaur?

Madeleine

I noticed that she had a really bad hand-writing (worse than Rajkumar's and even my brother's), but I bore with it. I thought that she was quite dumb in studies. Nevertheless, I wrote a long similar-styled letter back -

Dear Madeleine,

My name is Sivasubramanian*. I am studying in 4th standard in Holy Cross Higher Matriculation Secondary School**. My father's name is Sivakumar. He is a businessman. My mother's name is Sumithra. She is a house-wife. My brother's name is Sivapermual. He is studying in 1st standard. I am a good student. I got 3rd rank in my class in last year's half-yearly exam.

I like to play cricket and leg cricket. I like Jackie Chan films. I also like the Home Alone film very much. I like to eat mini dosa and noodles. I like Golden Dragon noodles. I also know Karate***. My brother is going to Karate class. But I can fight him easily. I also like WWF. I also have two albums full of foreign stamps. My aunty also gave me foreign coins. Do you collect stamps and coins?

My city is called Salem. It is in Tamilnadu state. It is full of mountains. It is famous for mangoes. It is also famous for Salem steel plant and Mettur dam. My father took me to the see that plant during the summer holidays. I wanted to see how the steel grows on the plant. But steel plant means a factory with a big furnace. There is a big lake in Mettur dam. It is also famous for Yercaud. It is a hill station. It has a big lake where we can go boating. There are many monkeys on the way. I am scared of monkeys. I am very scared of dogs also. There is also a big garden with old trees. There is a very old stone tree there. There is a famous temple called kotai mariamman temple in Salem.

There is no zoo in Salem. I have seen a dinosaur only in TV. I have seen the Jurassic Park film with my grandfather in Madras. But there is exhibition every year. In exhibition, there are many rides like giant wheel, tora tora, frog train and helicopter. I am afraid of giant wheel, but I like tora tora. My brother is very afraid of tora tora, but he likes giant wheel.

Do you have snowfall in Montreal? I have seen snow only on TV.

I will send five Romania stamps to you. They are extra stamps in my collection. I have another set. I will also send Indian stamps to you. I have 6 Canada stamps. If you have extra Canada stamps, can you send me?

Your loving friend****,

S. Sivasubramanian

IV Std – C

* - Note the trendy 'n' at the end of my name. An old-school governmental clerk in the Department of Matriculation Exams was responsible for the ugly 'm' that I have now.

** - I never really got the hang of the order of my school’s proper name then.

*** - There had to be a lie somewhere.

**** - That was the only salutation taught in letter writing.

There! It took me three attempts to make a flawless fair draft of that letter. I had written it without a single correction. It was time now for a perfect photograph to go along with it. I couldn't pick any from the recent Madras summer vacation collection because, in summer, I was always given a really bad haircut. So, I found one from a recent wedding collection and put it in an envelope with the letter and the stamps.

The next day, Azeem snatched my flawless letter (knowing well that any damage to it would spell doom) and read it. He said that I should have used a stylish sign instead of just writing my name. He also said girls liked stylish signatures, like how they sign in the films. I was upset and thought of rewriting it. Then I realised that I left my favorite glitter pen at home. It was no use writing the letter with any other pen and consoled myself.

Finally the time came for the submission and I slowly strolled to Clara Miss’s desk and gave it to her for inspection. She opened the envelope to see if I had written my address and noticed the stamps. She smiled as a sign of acceptance and kept it along with the other letters.

Phew! I sighed with relief and walked back to my desk with great hope; feeling like a man who had toiled hard to invest his savings in a 30’x40’ plot in the outskirts of Salem. I was very happy I had a friend in Canada. “Madeleine!” I said to myself. There was a certain joy in having such a pen-friend - the dream of getting to know more about people in a faraway place, the joy of sending and receiving gifts, the chance to invite them to my house for the summer vacation when they come to India or my staying at their house during the summer vacation when(?) I went to Canada. And since Madeleine was a pretty girl, there were also the additional dreams of falling in love and getting married and so on and so forth…

~~~*~~~

A week of such dreaming had gone past after I had sent the letter and there was no news from Clara Miss about the replies. I asked my mother how long it took for a letter to reach Canada and she said it took about two weeks. So I calculated that it would take a month more to get the reply. Mid-term exams arrived on time and I was diverted from the thoughts about Madeleine and her reply. Post mid-term exams, I heard no news about the letters from Clara Miss. Everybody in the class seemed to have forgotten and I was the only one initiating conversations about the pen-friends club and the replies. It looked as if I was the only one expecting the letter.

Finally, after a month and a half, Clara Miss brought a small bunch of letters and distributed them to the class. Only a few of us got the letters and I wasn’t one. She then informed us that those of us who hadn’t received it now will get it in in the next bundle. I sat there frustrated about the ensuing wait, during which time, Azeem taunted me by waving his reply letter in front of my face.

Another month and a half passed and a larger bundle arrived this time. Apart from those who got replies the first time, a few others got their replies as well and I wasn’t part of this tiny group as well. After that tiny heart-break, I entirely dropped the plan of stealing my cousin’s jimmikis that I wanted to send to Madeleine the next time.

Nevertheless, the pen-friends club thrived. They elected a president and vice-president for it from the senior classes. These guys were in charge of collecting the replies and submitting them to the Teacher-in-charge for review and finally to the school’s dispatch section. They even did some useful things like arranging new pen-friends to all those who hadn’t got replies.

With dreams of a union with Madeleine still lingering on in my mind, I refused and decided to wait. Half-yearly exams came and the winter vacation arrived along with the next bundle of replies from Canada. Madeleine hadn’t replied. Finally, after the Christmas and New Year vacation, I gave up. I was officially heartbroken. I was gloomy during the entire vacation and lost my entire collection of Big Babool wrestling cards to Rajkumar in several games of cricket and wrestling cards.

When school reopened, it was time for the publishing of our school literary magazine – “Paper Bridge”. I wrote a poem called “My Lost Friend” for it. Surprisingly, they published it (under Section “Miscellany” Sub-Section “Non-sense poetry”)

Moon may become red

And apples may become white

Dogs may start to meow

And cats may start to bowbow

Lions may fly and eagles may swim, But -

Expecting your letter,

Even in the months of winter -

(November, December and January)

Every day and night, I will wait…

I really thought that it was ingenious and that it deserved a prize. I had even managed to slip her name (or at least its homophone) into the poem that no one found out. But as always, I received nothing.

A little later that year, something cheerful happened - I won the first prize in the fancy dress contest! I still wonder how I managed that feat. There I was, clad in a soiled silk kurta and wearing an over-sized skewed, smelly wig on my tiny head and an even smellier beard on my face, I walked towards the center of the stage, with a nasty-smelling glass bottle (which my father took out - to my mother's surprise and horror - from a secret chamber of his cupboard) filled with Coca-cola. I meandered enough along the way - swaying to the left and right, as my father taught me to, and finally reached the center and faced the audience to deliver my well-rehearsed dialogue.

My mother and I had managed to copy some quotes on love and heart-break from a quotation book I won as a prize earlier. I had the lines by heart and I was supposed to deliver them interspersed with coughs. But by the time I reached the microphone, I had forgotten the lines -

“The course of *cough* *cough* true love… *cough* *cough*… errr… ummm…” and I waited for ten seconds and I couldn’t recollect the rest of it. By this time, the crowd had grown impatient. I then tried recollecting the next line.

“My love for you *cough* *cough* is… ummm… *cough* *cough* past the mind… *cough* *cough* … errr… ummm…” This line deserted me as well. And there I was standing on the center of the stage, being a laughing stock. From there, I could see the crowd laughing at me, including Azeem who was standing on the side of the auditorium in his green rubber dinosaur costume along with his parents. He had received great applause for his highly expensive costume earlier. All he managed to do was stand in front of the mike and say “Gurrr… gurrr… I am a dinosaur…. Gurrr…. Gurrr…” I always wondered why he needed a costume to look like a dinosaur.

Nevertheless, there I was – being a laughing stock in front of my arch-enemy. My mother was standing near the entrance of the stage and was mouthing the lines so that I could pick up. I was bad at reading those days, leave alone lip-reading. I was helpless and so, I contemplated running out of the stage, out of the auditorium and sprinting straight home. And then it struck me - My poem! I began with renewed sorrow -

“Moon may become red *cough* *cough*… And apples may become white *cough* *cough*…

Dogs may start to *cough* *cough* …. 

[…] 

Every day and night, *cough* *cough* I will wait…"

And finally, as rehearsed earlier, I fell on the stage with a BIG THUD and died.

Clara Miss later said that I was the best Devdas in the history of fancy dress in my school. She even said I deserved it. Azeem punched me the next day for cheating. My mother said they gave it to me for the sheer realism with which I delivered my dialogue.

How I wish she knew it came from the bottom of my heart!

~~~*~~~

And thus began a saga of disappointments. As I grew up, I tried all modes of making pen-friends. I tried the pen-friends pages of Gokulam (Kalyan Ragunandan), Wisdom (Vikram M) and Tinkle (Priyanka Garg) and spent my precious pocket-money on postage. And as the squiggly tentacles of the Internet reached the browsing-centers of my small-town, I even tried my hands making penpals on the Internet (Chandrika Vaas and many others). I guess I have the record for sending out the largest number of pen-friend letters without receiving a single reply. And then I gave up (thankfully!) before the rise of social-networking.

(Now is the time I have to admit I have no idea how to finish this story.)

Sometimes, I wonder why I was so excited about pen-friends. Was it the need for companionship? Was it simply adolescence? I guess I always wanted to learn the culture of places that I saw on TV, first-hand from someone who was part of it. (And of course, the falling in love and getting married and so on and so forth parts hold true as well…) I guess I always dreamed a lot.

~~~*~~~

P.S : Load and loads of fiction. :-)

P.S.2 : Inspired by a blog post by Anoop V Namboodiri at my workplace blog about a similar pen-pal mishap.